Monthly Archives: April, 2012

Learn To Be Quiet

You need not do anything.
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
You need not even listen, just wait.
You need not even wait,
just learn to be quiet, still and solitary.
And the world will freely offer itself to you unmasked.
It has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924)

Cost of “Winning”

At every quarterly examination a gold medal was given to the best writer. When the first medal was offered, it produced rather a general contention than an emulation and diffused a spirit of envy, jealousy, and discord through the whole school; boys who were bosom friends before became fierce contentious rivals, and when the prize was adjudged became implacable enemies. Those who were advanced decried the weaker performances; each wished his opponent’s abilities less than his own, and they used all their little arts to misrepresent and abuse each other’s performances.

– Robert Coram, Political Inquiries (1791)

A Short Introduction to the Philosophy of W. Edwards Deming

These three videos provide a short introduction to the philosophy of Dr. W. Edwards Deming.